When You See the Doctor (in the emergency room)

When You See the Doctor (in the emergency room)

In most health care settings, your time with the doctor will be limited. This is especially true of the emergency department, where the goal is to address your immediate crisis and help make you stable until you can see your regular health care provider.
Be prepared to briefly describe your current pain problem. Include:
Location of your pain;

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What Not to Expect (from the ER if you are a pain patient)

What Not to Expect (from the ER if you are a pain patient)

The ED is designed to take care of urgent, short-term problems and to stabilize patients so that they can see their own health care providers in the morning or in a few days. The ED is not able to do these things:
Diagnose long-term problems and provide a treatment plan;

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What to Expect (from the ER as a pain sufferer)

What to Expect (from the ER as a pain sufferer)

The emergency department is meant to provide treatment for sudden, extreme, or unstable illnesses or accidents. It cannot take the place of regular care from a family doctor or pain specialist. But it can help you get through those times when your pain breaks through or you have some other critical event.

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Preparing for an Emergency Department Visit

Preparing for an Emergency Department Visit

If it is possible, go to the emergency department of the hospital that your doctor is affiliated with. This will allow the ED staff to get access to your medical records, which can be very helpful. You can make the process go more smoothly if you come prepared. When you are in crisis, you may not be able to think clearly, so it’s a good idea to have this information ready in an envelope or folder you can just grab on your way out the door.

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Going to the ER (as a pain patient)

Going to the ER (as a pain patient)

Almost everyone who lives with pain has been to the emergency room at some time. You may have gone because your pain was out of control and you could not reach your own health care team. You may have gone because you feared that your pain was a sign of a new medical problem. You may have gone because you have no insurance. Or your own doctor may have sent you there.

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Multiple ER Visits Linked to Risk of Prescription-Drug Overdose Death

Multiple ER Visits Linked to Risk of Prescription-Drug Overdose Death

THURSDAY May 14, 2015, 2015 — Frequent visits to emergency departments appear to be a predictor of death from a prescription drug overdose, a new study finds.People with four or more ER visits in the past year were 48 times more likely to die of prescription drug overdose compared to those who visited an ER once or not at all, researchers found. With three visits a year, the risk of overdose death from a prescription drug was 17 times greater.
The study, by researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, was recently published online in the journal Annals of Epidemiology.

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Patient Satisfaction Scores Not Affected by Amount of Opioids Given in Emergency Room

Patient Satisfaction Scores Not Affected by Amount of Opioids Given in Emergency Room

Giving opioids to patients in the emergency room (ER) does not affect their satisfaction scores, according a retrospective analysis of medical records and Press Ganey patient satisfaction surveys.
Researchers matched the medical records and completed surveys of 4,749 patients seen in the ERs of two New England hospitals to determine if there is a link between the amount of opioids administered in the ER and Press Ganey scores—one of the most commonly used metrics for measuring patient satisfaction, according to the study authors. They also factored in other variables such as medication order, health insurance status, time of arrival to the ER, total length of stay and patient-reported pain levels. The researchers did not find any association between prescribing opioids and patient satisfaction scores.
“Based on these findings, the administration of opioids in the emergency department setting does not make patients more satisfied,” said study author Kavita Babu, MD, in a press release.
Administering opioids in the ER is a challenge to physicians because of the time constraints, concerns about safety and lack of familiarity with the patient, according to the researchers. However, because compensation is linked to patient satisfaction scores in some hospital settings, some physicians might feel pressured to prescribe opioids to keep these scores up.

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A Pained Life: ER Protocols

A Pained Life: ER Protocols

When I read about people going to the emergency room to be treated for breakthrough pain, it is rare for anyone to say they felt they were well-treated. They tend to say they were disbelieved, looked at as a drug seeker, or the ER doctor did not give them enough meds to last until they could see their pain management doctor.

I have almost always replied, “Ask your doctor to send a protocol letter to the ER. Then if you have to go they will know what you have and how your doctor wants it treated.”

It occurred to me that it would be a good idea for me to query some ER’s and see if this was in fact good advice.
After talking with one nurse, I did not feel it necessary to talk with any others.

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